


Friendship's a Habit (We Just Can't Kick)

by BabylonsFall



Category: Leverage
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, Family Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Minor Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, Minor Sophie Devereaux/Nathan Ford, Multi, Team as Family, the rest of the team shows up in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 08:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabylonsFall/pseuds/BabylonsFall
Summary: He knew when it started. But he couldn’t put a date on when it becameexpected.Or when it became less of Sophie needing someone to vent to, and more two people leaning on each other.





	Friendship's a Habit (We Just Can't Kick)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an expanded version of [an ask](https://distinctivelibrarians.tumblr.com/post/171314109578/ugh-tumblr-ate-my-previous-ask-headcanons-for) I received a couple days ago that, long story short, asked about my headcanons for the gossip group of Leverage.
> 
> Don't look too hard at the timeline, and this might be a little rough, but I'm also coming out of a major writer's block and really just wanted to write _something_. For having no idea how I wanted this to look, I'm pretty happy with how it came out.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Hardison and Parker were too...sharp, where Nate was concerned.

Everything was an extreme. He was their saving grace, or the devil dragging them down. He was their mentor or their junkie. They trusted what he did without trusting a damn thing that came out of his mouth (except that they trusted that most of all, despite how short a time they’d all been around each other, and each time they got burned, they just kept coming back).

Eliot...Eliot didn't see that. He saw what Nate was: a man, like any other. And the other two would as well, given time.

But Sophie really just needed someone to see Nate. To see him and understand where she was coming from.

This wasn't the end of the world. This wasn't the end all be all. This wasn't the end of the book. Hell, this wasn’t even a significant chapter.

This was just a fight. Barely, even. And she just wanted to vent. To anyone. Anyone who saw both of them for who they were, who saw that she didn't want an ultimatum, didn't want to throw anyone or anything into the fire to burn away.

A friend, essentially.

So, there she was. At Eliot’s door, at midnight, on a Friday night.

And he wasn’t home.

She wasn’t proud of the loud, frustrated sound she made. But she was a little proud of getting the neighbor to bugger off with a few choice words.

She  _ knew  _ Eliot went home after they all met up that evening, after finally wrapping up that ridiculous near death experience with that damn plane. He was good at letting them know when he’d be out and about—never details, never specifics, just a general warning to call instead of hunt him down—but he's not  _ there _ .

So she’d called.

She's not sure what she sounded like over the phone when he picked up. Couldn't tell anyone the actual conversation they had, if asked months later. She just knew that she spent the night in an apartment across town from the address he'd given the crew, venting and, eventually, laughing.

(When  _ that  _ came out, there'd been a bit of yelling, a bit of hurt, until Eliot pointed out that he knew Hardison had both addresses—which, he at least looked a little sheepish about, everything between all of them still too new, too sharp, that checking in like that wasn't expected, wasn't counted on—but that he knew Hardison wouldn’t use that knowledge unless absolutely necessary. Sophie had enjoyed Hardison's gobsmacked expression at the time, but, looking back on it later, she'd realized just how big of a neon sign that had been.)

* * *

Eliot didn’t know when it became a habit. Sure, he knew where it  _ started _ . Hard not to—Sophie had been loud over the phone, and ranting about Nate, and even though she refused to say it, she’d really just needed a place to yell for a bit. He’d invited her over because, frankly, if she was turning to him, she probably didn’t have anyone else in easy reach and...well. The whole team thing was working out well enough, and he liked Sophie just fine at that point. Didn’t mean he  _ trusted _ her. Or any of them, really.

(Except he was getting there, quickly.)

(But that was fucking terrifying at the time, so denial it was.)

Either way. She’d come over, had her moment to vent. She’d slept in his guest room, he’d made breakfast, and they didn’t talk about it the next day. Or ever, really.

So, he knew when it started. But he couldn’t put a date on when it became  _ expected _ . Or when it became less of Sophie needing someone to vent to, and more two people leaning on each other. He knew it was a good year after Sophie had first barged into his space that he returned the favor and tracked her down to her apartment (after the cluster that was Nebraska). But that wasn’t the first time he’d sought her out—the coffee shop around the corner, the bar below Nate’s apartment, on the way to their latest job, phone calls when either of them could spare a moment after the team split—calls he’d decided early on not to think too hard about, because, honestly? I was just... _ nice  _ to have a (semi-)normal friend out in the world that he could occasionally touch base with.

They didn’t talk about that either.

He’s not surprised when she leaves—tries to pretend he is, for the others’ sake though. But he’d been there for the Jack breakup. He was there when Sophie started questioning what she was doing. Sure, at the time, she’d more or less played it off, and he’d let her. But he knew that look she’d had, had seen it plenty of times in the mirror. Sometimes you had to leave before what was left broke in half.

There are more phone calls, then. So many more phone calls than the other two made while she was out and about in the world.

Much as that time had royally sucked—for so many reasons, not the least of which was that his friend was out there, outside of this little protective circle he was tentatively building but didn’t want to admit to—it had been kind of nice being called from the far end of the world by someone looking for a restaurant suggestion, or to rant about the weather, or, once, to give directions (and he was never going to let her live that down) instead of a job.

Which lead him to where he is now, actually. He’d been as surprised as Hardison had been when Sophie had shown up on that damn ship—she hadn’t breathed a word of coming back so soon, so suddenly. It made him feel a little better, later, when she said it was a spur of the moment thing, but still.

Right now though, he was outside what had been her apartment, knowing full well she’d sold this place the second she’d decided to leave.

Hardison and Parker were back at the bar, doing...well, who knew. He’d made sure they got back safe, and then he’d left. To do what, he hadn’t known. Maybe punch something, maybe run until he didn’t want to punch something. His pounding head and the twinge in his...everything had kind of shot that to shit though.

Muscle memory brought him there, because his head was definitely not in any kind of shape to keep conscious track of where he was going. But it’s all him when he pulls his phone out and dials her number from memory.

He gets an address about two blocks down the street and a request to pick up dinner from the hole in the wall four blocks out. All he can do is smile and ask what she wants.

* * *

Sophie’s the only one not surprised these days when Eliot switches languages with ease.

If they’re both feeling petty with the rest of the team, they’d both switch, leaving the rest of them floundering.

(They can’t use Spanish anymore, though Hardison still thinks Parker butting into their conversation out of nowhere was the funniest thing ever.)

* * *

Eliot knows almost down to the precise moment when Sophie and Nate get into a fight. And when they make up.

It drives Nate up a wall every goddamn time.

* * *

Sophie never quite forgives herself for missing how rattled Eliot was with the Moreau situation. Eliot never stops telling her he didn’t want her to see.

(Neither talk about the fact that Hardison  _ did  _ see. Eliot because he  _ can’t _ , Sophie because, sometimes, she does possess some level of tact.)

* * *

Eliot doesn’t tell her that he knows  _ exactly  _ what went down in that hotel room. Instead, he makes her favorite dinner and gets her a cake with a bright pink “congratulations” written on it. Her laughing doesn’t stop her from throwing a bit at his head.

* * *

Sophie half expects to see Eliot on her doorstep after they pull Hardison from the ground.

She’s more than happy when she doesn’t.

And more than angry when she learns he spent the night running himself ragged instead of with him. Eliot can’t quite look her in the eye though, which takes all the steam out of her rant. He can’t hear what she wants to say, so instead, she drags him back home and makes him watch a marathon of whatever trashy 80s and 90s action movies they can find on tv.

* * *

(She kicks him out of the apartment when they get back from the university. And for good measure, calls Hardison and Parker to make sure they pick him up.)

* * *

Eliot’s the first to hear Sophie complaining about Portland. Sophie’s the second the hear about why the brewpub is just an  _ awful  _ idea.

She has no problem calling him out—he can’t hide how excited he is, not to her. He can’t quite drop the act, not completely. But she does get a smile, counts it as a win.

* * *

Eliot hears all about Vlad. And Nate’s reaction. He finds it a hell of a lot funnier than Nate does. It’s not the first time Nate glares at them, and it won’t be the last.

* * *

No one’s more surprised than she is when Amy finds herself with a standing Thursday date with either homemade dinner in a spartan flat on the outskirts of Portland or upscale takeout and wine at a downtown apartment fit to rival any of her parents’ places. Not that she’s complaining, of course. She just finds it a little...odd, sometimes. When she bothers to think about it.

But, if she’s being honest? It’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened since the foiled kidnapping attempt.

Her bosses are international criminals. That tops the list, surely.

(Or maybe its the fact that she trusts them more than any of her parents’ social circle.)

Parker regularly drags her out to do what she calls ‘normal people things’—shopping, coffee runs, book club (Peggy was very nice, she’d give her that), things like that. Hardison and her apparently have the same taste in movies, and Eliot assures her that she’s a blessing because, “finally, someone who can keep up with his references.” Nate’s nice enough. He’s not her boss though, and she only really sees him around the others, which is just fine with her.

And, somewhere in there, she’d gotten to talking with Sophie and Eliot. And then got invited along to what Hardison had told her was their ‘gossip nights’. Eliot, who definitely hadn’t actually heard him—he was across the room!—threw a spatula at him out of nowhere.

The thing is though, as weird as it might be from the outside, she loves Thursday nights, when she can make them.

She knows how Sophie and Nate are doing. She knows who Eliot last saw and why he’s not seeing them anymore—and she’s reached a point where she can share a  _ look  _ with Sophie about that because, wow, he is  _ not  _ subtle. She hears the most fantastic, outrageous stories about their previous cons—she never quite believes the whole story, which she feels is fair. She once asked Hardison and Parker to double check after one—something to do with a pocket watch, a lot of gold, and Chinese miners—and Hardison swore up and down that Eliot and Sophie got the story wrong.

In return, they’re the first to know when she gets accepted into an art school—Eliot cooks the most amazing dinner that night, and Sophie takes her out to buy more materials than she could possibly need the next day, and that night they tell her to invite any friends she’d like to the pub for a party to celebrate. They’re among the first to hear her complaints about the brewpub (if it’s serious, she knows it’ll get back to Hardison) or her family. And having people who understand both sides of that—of decent work versus the stifling weight of her former social circle—is a relief.

She’s there the night Eliot calls ahead to let them know he won’t be coming around. And when the speaker phone picks up Hardison and Parker telling him to hurry up, they’re going to be late for their reservation, her and Sophie can’t help but laugh and tell him good luck.

(They see him the next day and Amy’s never seen that small, soft smile. Sophie tells her she hasn’t either.)

Her and Eliot are in the middle of dissecting everything on Hardison’s current rewrite of the menu (Amy for shits and giggles, Eliot because it’s apparently a travesty) when Sophie marches up and tells them, point blank, if Nate doesn’t propose soon, she’s going to do it herself.

She’s not there for the proposal, but Eliot calls her right after and gives her a play by play. And then she gets a text from Sophie—with a blurry picture of a beautiful ring.

She  _ is  _ there to say goodbye, for now, to Sophie and Nate as they leave the brewpub the next day. Hardison swears he’s not crying, Eliot’s rolling his eyes, and Parker and her are grinning so hard it hurts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are always greatly appreciated!
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://distinctivelibrarians.tumblr.com/post/171314109578) if you like!


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